


i fall apart (with all my heart)

by intimatopia



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: (Drake), Cissexism, Communication, Dialogue, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Penis In Vagina Sex, Therapy, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-18 03:08:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18112016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intimatopia/pseuds/intimatopia
Summary: Somewhere Andrew still thinks of penetrative sex as real sex, even though it's really not.





	i fall apart (with all my heart)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my lovely beta, [faiasakura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/faiasakura) for all her help and encouragement as I wrote - I would have abandoned this without her.  
> Tase, Kay and Jordi listened to me talk about this fic, read it through, and loved me in spite of it.  
> Title from tennis court by Lorde.
> 
> [main tumblr](https://intimatopia.tumblr.com) : [fandom tumblr](https://vanyapositive.tumblr.com)

Neil is gentler than he has any right to be—gentler than Andrew can handle, some days. It’s not that he wants Neil to be harsh with him, but he keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Neil to push too far and break Andrew’s trust. Then maybe Andrew would be able to let go of him without guilt, without looking back, because right now—

Because right now, Neil lets Andrew straddle his hips and keep him down on the bed, or on the floor, wherever they end up kissing. If Andrew pins his hands to his sides, Neil doesn’t try to lift them, and he doesn’t try to touch Andrew when he can’t bear to be touched, and it’s. Strange. Hard to get used to.

They haven’t had sex yet—well. They have. But somewhere Andrew still thinks of PiV sex as “real” sex, even if Bee and everyone he knows would disagree. Andrew’s sucked Neil off, and later on Andrew went to the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror for minutes so he could mull over the feeling of having power over Neil, the way he felt safe and helpless at once.

Neil has a way of doing things to him, a way of making him feel too many things in too short a span of time, thoughts and emotions whirling through him faster than he can process. These days he’s more grateful than he’s ever been before for his ability to keep a straight face through anything, but he also hates it. Hates that he’s spent so long not smiling that all he can do in the face of Neil’s sleepy morning smiles is scowl. He wants to smile back, and he doesn’t remember how.

He wants to have sex with Neil, but he doesn’t want to feel like he’s being taken over. He can’t think of a way to make it work.

He thinks about it for days. Dismisses every plan that comes to mind. Neil is hard to predict, and predicting himself around Neil is almost harder.

Neil waits a long time to bring it up. He’s cottoned on to it, of course—he’s more perceptive than he gets credit for being, and he’s been surviving on his own for most of his life, which necessitates a certain amount of instinctive knowledge of the world and the people in it. He’s even better at reading Andrew—of course he is. He pays attention.

“You’ve been distracted for days,” Neil says one evening after dinner. He’s watching something on his laptop, Andrew is reading a book he borrowed out of the library.

Andrew scowls. It’s instinctive. “Go back to whatever you’re watching.”

“I’m done,” Neil says, smiling with his teeth. “Out with it.”

Andrew goes back to reading, but he wants to talk about it. Irritatingly, talking about things helps him. Bee had to teach him that. He knows, but he still resists. He knows, but he still tries not to let people in.

It’s a bit late for Neil, though. He breathes slowly for ten counts. “You know that Aaron and I are trans.”

Neil looks up from his laptop, thoughtful. “I knew you were,” he says. “I didn’t know Aaron is too.”

Andrew stares at him. Dark red hair, ridiculous blue eyes. The rarest combination. _We could have kids,_ he thinks suddenly, and it takes a beat before the disgust sweeps in. “We’re identical twins,” he says harshly. “What did you think?”

Neil shrugs. “I didn’t, clearly.” He pauses. “Does that make us straight?”

Andrew gives him the most disgusted look he’s capable of, the kind he reserves for especially stupid statements like this. “I’m gay,” he says coldly. “I don’t know about you.”

“Oh,” Neil says dumbly. He’s so fucking stupid. Andrew wants to kill him. “Whatever you say.”

From anyone else, Andrew would take those words to be condescension, the irritating tendency of cis people to assume they know gender better than anybody else. Acting like _they_ were humouring _him_. Neil doesn’t mean it like that, though; Andrew can tell. He says it humbly. Andrew hates him more for that than for his casual cissexism.

“Nine hundred percent,” he says spitefully, breaking his own carefully constructed but largely arbitrary scale. “ _I mean it_ ,” he says to Neil’s love-soaked grin.

“I know.”

“You don’t know shit.”

“I know,” Neil repeats pleasantly. And then: “You were saying something. About you being trans.”

Andrew forces down his nervousness. “I want to fuck you,” he says steadily.

“Oh,” Neil says, sounding surprised. “Well. I suppose we could buy strap-ons, there’s a store Allison’s been raving about—”

Andrew’s cracking apart under the weight of his own hatred for Neil. “I meant with _your_ dick.”

It’s crude, but it shuts Neil up, and that’s about as much of this conversation that Andrew wants to deal with today. He reaches over to unplug the headphones Neil’s using, grabs them out of his limp hands, and puts them on just to signify how fucking _done_ he is with this entire stupid conversation.

:::

In an ideal world, that would be it. Four days later he finds a brown paper bag left innocuously on his desk, beside Neil’s wallet. He digs through it when Neil is in class, and comes up with a bottle of quality lube (does Neil think Andrew doesn’t possess any of his own?) and condoms in Neil’s size. There’s also, to his surprise, a cock ring.

Andrew licks his lips. Thinks of the possibilities. He had thought of cock rings, but he hadn’t thought he could talk Neil into them—hadn’t wanted to talk Neil into them. But if Neil’s open to it—there’s so much Andrew can do to a dick that can’t come. He could edge Neil for hours; just the thought flips his stomach.

He tosses the ring at Neil’s face that very evening. “Yes or no?”

Neil grabs it out of the air. “Yes,” he says emphatically. And then hesitates. “But—”

“No buts,” Andrew reminds him.

Neil rolls his eyes. “Yes,” he repeats. “But I have homework.”

Andrew smiles. This couldn’t be more ideal. “Trust me,” he says. Waits for Neil to nod before gesturing for him to strip.

He puts Neil on the couch, slipping the ring onto his cock before nudging Neil’s thighs far enough apart that Andrew can kneel between them. “You can touch my hair,” he tells Neil. “But no pulling, okay?”

“Okay,” Neil says, clearly a bit dazed. Andrew smirks.

He tongues at the head of Neil’s dick until he’s hard, bobbing up pink and full tantalizingly close to Andrew’s face. He likes this more than he wants to admit, but he can’t keep it a secret from Neil. He licks and sucks and kisses at Neil’s cock and tunes out his whimpers, revels in the way he’s scratching lightly at Andrew’s scalp like Andrew is a particularly talented housecat. He keeps it up until the timer on his phone goes off in his pocket, and then he pulls back. “Come down here,” he says hoarsely. Kisses Neil until he feels breathless, overwhelmed by how good it feels to kiss Neil when he’s eager and obliging and desperate. The prettiest thing Andrew’s ever laid eyes on.

He gets up in one fluid move, ignoring the dull ache in his knees. “Hey,” Neil protests.

Andrew pats him condescendingly on the head. “Do your homework,” he says and goes into the bathroom.

He fingers himself to a mental playback of every second since Neil walked back into their shared apartment, the way it felt to have Neil falling apart under him. Unable to hold back but forced to anyway. Bites his lips as he comes to muffle his own groan.

When he gets back out, Neil is sitting at the table with a textbook open next to his laptop. He still looks flushed and flustered, but there’s an ease to the set of his shoulders that Andrew really, really likes.

 _God_. He’s too sappy post-orgasm for his own good. This is why he doesn’t wank too often.

He reads until dinnertime—it’s Neil’s turn to cook, and Andrew accosts him in the kitchen just before he can start with preparations. He jerks Neil off while mouthing gently at his neck—he tastes criminally good, Andrew should not be so into the taste of Neil’s _skin_ , fuck’s sake—nipping lightly each time Neil moans. He doesn’t set a timer this time, backs off when Neil’s hips begin to hitch forward helplessly. Spends a few seconds longer than necessary sucking a hickey into Neil’s shoulder. “Maybe you should make pasta today,” Andrew mumbles. He doesn’t know why he says it—he doesn’t particularly like pasta unless it’s Nicky’s—but he has to say something. Neil nods. His eyes are blown up and dark, and his lips are red and plump from where he’s been biting them, and Andrew wants to have a dick just so he can push it between Neil’s lips.

_Mother of fuck._

Andrew doesn’t touch Neil all through dinner, staunchly ignoring the longing glances Neil keeps shooting him. They drive out for dessert, a weekly custom—Neil gets a waffle, Andrew gets enough ice cream to make any professional athlete wince.

“Are you gonna touch me at all?” Neil asks plaintively, as they kick off their shoes back home. Andrew saunters off to change.

“You could touch yourself,” Andrew throws back over his shoulder. “No one’s stopping you.”

Neil follows him into their bedroom. When Andrew turns around, Neil is looking at him agape. “But—”

Andrew hums questioningly.

Neil throws himself onto their bed and takes out his cock with enormous petulance. His cock is also enormous. Andrew opens twitter on his phone just to have something to do with his hands.

Neil jerks off in his usual way, fast and almost careless. He has a tendency to slip into old habits unless Andrew’s right there, directing him, but lately Andrew’s very presence has been enough to remind Neil to slow down and take it easy on himself. Apparently a little annoyance undoes all of that.

Andrew lets him keep going for about a minute, and then he says: “Slow down.”

“Why do you care?” Neil said sulkily.

“Do what I tell you to,” Andrew says dangerously. “Neil. Yes or no?”

“Yes,” Neil says. It brings him back to himself; his hand slows on his cock, and he relaxes somewhat into the sheets. Starts to look like this is actually something that brings him pleasure, instead of an exy game he has to win at all costs.

Scratch that. Neil gets a lot more joy out of exy than he does out of jerking off—or at least he did until Andrew came along and taught him how to jerk off. And he had to be taught. For a cis guy, Neil sure does a good job of being disconnected from his body and dick.

As he watches the flush rise on Neil’s face, Andrew wonders if Neil is even all that cis. How would Neil even know if he were cis? If he’s not, he’s probably chalked it up to years of identity issues and abuse. Or he thinks that’s how it works for all cis guys. Does he even know the word cis? Andrew resolves to bring it up to him at a later date.

Andrew goes to the bed when he notices Neil’s soft moans growing more breathless. More desperate. “Hey,” he says softly, bending down to stroke back Neil’s hair. He feels tender inside, and he isn’t used to it. “Neil. Stop.” There are tears in Neil’s eyes, sparkling unshed. He stares up at Andrew.

“Andrew,” he whispers. Andrew makes a snap-decision.

“You can come now if you want,” he says slowly, and Neil groans in relief. “ _Or_ —or you can come tomorrow, when you fuck me. What do you want?”

“Can’t I have both?” Neil asks, but Andrew can hear the resignation in his voice.

“Make a decision,” Andrew says. Neil closes his eyes. And Andrew already knows.

“Tomorrow,” Neil mumbles.

Andrew sits by the bed and pets Neil’s hair for a few more minutes. Until Neil is as relaxed as he can be, under the circumstances. Then he says, “You have to take that off.”

Neil’s eyes snap open. “The ring?”

“Yes. You can’t sleep with it on.”

Neil groans. “Could you do the honours?”

Andrew smirks. Neil’s mostly soft by now, but his abs are tense with strain. He’s going to get hard again the minute Andrew so much as breathes on him. “We can do this the hard way—” Neil’s dick twitches at the word _hard_ “—or you can relax and I can get this off and it won’t end with your dick no longer attached to you.”

“Is that likely?” Neil squeaks. He’s soft, at least. Andrew slides the ring gently off. Gives him a disgusted look.

“Just how stupid are you?” he says harshly. He raps his knuckles against the side of Neil’s head as he rises to his feet. “Try to sleep,” he says briskly. “I’m taking the couch today.”

Neil whines.

:::

Andrew goes for a run the next morning.

He doesn’t think of it consciously—he wakes up before Neil does, and while the couch is more than big enough for him—it was made to seat four people and Andrew is three and a half at best—he’s buzzing with nervous energy. So he takes a page out of Neil’s book, puts on his shoes, and runs around the block until his brain is full of blood-energy-fuzz. Pounding.

Neil has breakfast ready when he gets back up, and Andrew has a brief flash of guilt. It was his turn to cook. They take their turns seriously; they have a system and messing with it is bad for both of them. Andrew makes a note to buy groceries for lunch and dinner. Digs into the waffles without really trying to acknowledge Neil, and Neil is ignoring him right back so it’s fine.

It’s fine. This is just how it is, some mornings. The entire day, every once in a while. He and Neil are good at sharing space without stepping into each other. Neil does his homework. Andrew reads a book on autism he borrowed from Bee.

Around ten Andrew takes a bath, grabs his keys, and goes to the supermarket. In his head he maps out every way they can do this, every way Neil can fuck Andrew and make it good for both of them. Every way Andrew can direct this and the places where his control might thin.

Neil is still doing classwork when Andrew comes home. He starts in on lunch wordlessly, and eventually Neil bores himself enough to wander over and ask if he can help. Andrew sets him to chopping vegetables.

Lunch is a silent affair right until Neil goes, “So are we doing it today?”

“It?” Andrew says calmly.

Neil fidgets. “You know. It.”

“You want to know if we’re going to fuck.”

Neil blushes.

Andrew doesn’t reply. He doesn’t want to admit that he doesn’t know, that he wants to do it today but he doesn’t know when, and he hates not knowing. He hates that sometimes he can’t even predict himself.

Neil finishes eating, washes his plate and returns it to its place. He turns back just before he leaves the kitchen, to say “Will you talk to me?”

It isn’t passive-aggressive, or even petulant, as he knows Neil is capable of being. He just sounds—humble. Unsure and seeking direction from Andrew. Somebody should have told him that Andrew is the worst person to look to for help. It’s too late now.

They end up kissing on the couch, falling into each other naturally. Neil pokes him in the ankle, cocks his head before he goes “Yes or no?” He lets Andrew plunder his mouth easily, even as Andrew fists his hair to guide his mouth. Even as Andrew bites at his jaw. He’s so, so easy. Andrew wants him so bad he can’t think. Wants Neil _in_ him, wants to be able to feel Neil in ways he’s never allowed himself with anyone else.

“Yes or no?”

“Yes,” Neil gasps, and then moans when Andrew bites at his nipple through his shirt. Andrew sucks diligently, almost apologetically, sliding a hand under Neil’s shirt to splay over his stomach. Keep him back.

He climbs back off Neil abruptly and without warning, going into their room to pick up the condoms and lube. He hesitates over the cock ring and then pockets it anyway—he wants to be prepared—before coming back out. Leans against the doorway for a second, watches Neil where he’s spread limply on the couch, head tilted back and hair messy and face flushed. He’s so, so pretty.  _You would look so good in lace_.

“Come to bed,” Andrew says loudly, mostly on impulse. Partly because he doesn’t want the first time he lets someone fuck him to happen on a couch. Andrew doesn’t have standards, and Neil certainly doesn’t, but milestones like this are allowed to have a semblance of dignity.

 _This is a milestone,_ Andrew thinks, and shocks himself.

Neil trips his way to Andrew, ungraceful in his eagerness. Andrew catches him without thinking, shoves them both towards the bed.

Once on it, he can straddle Neil’s hips. Perhaps he could bind Neil’s hands—except that he wants Neil to touch him back, even at risk to Andrew’s skin. He’s buzzing with a lightness he last felt on drugs, but it’s clean, no edge of toxicity. He could live like this. Perhaps he will, one day.

He wonders how people live with hope. He wonders if he can ask Neil. It might just tear him open.

He kisses the tender inside of Neil’s wrist, drops his hand back down. “No touching,” he warns, like he doesn’t know that Neil never would unless Andrew explicitly allowed him. Neil nods obediently. He’s hard and Andrew can see it tenting his jeans—if Andrew shifted forward then he’d be able to feel Neil’s dick right against his cunt. The idea is intoxicating, and today Andrew isn’t denying himself. “No touching,” he repeats, more out of habit than any real concern, before he shifts his hips forward.

If Andrew were anyone else at all, he’d blush. There’s something frighteningly intimate about feeling another man’s cock against this part of him, when he can feel too just how wet and turned on _he_ is. And Neil can’t feel him back, not in the same way.

“Does it feel good?” Andrew asks curiously. He rocks down, closing his eyes for a brief second.

“Yes,” Neil groans. “Jesus. Andrew. _Fuck._ ”

Andrew rocks down again. He could come like this, and Neil probably could too. Just from grinding together over their clothes. “Yeah?” Andrew asks.

“Do something—” Neil is trembling under him. “—Anything.”

Andrew thinks fast. Lifts up his hips to shimmy off his jeans, and practically tears Neil’s annoyingly skinny ones out of the way. Getting to see Neil’s dick, hard because of Andrew, is another sweet thrill.

It’s almost instinctive to bend down and press a kiss to the crown. To Neil’s credit, he doesn’t do anything but tense and whine, long and low. He’s so good, Andrew hates him. Hates that no one taught Neil how to not cant up his hips when his dick is touched—he does it every day because that’s what Andrew needs. Andrew _hates_ him.

He’s just not quite sure when hate became so warm and sweet.

He leans over to grab the lube off the bedside table, the expensive one that Neil got. Andrew just uses KY Jelly, but he tried this one out on himself last night, and he has to admit it’s better.

Andrew keeps his eyes heavy on Neil as he fingers himself lazily, and Neil looks steadily back at him. His eyes are dark, the blue a thin sliver around his blown pupils, and he licks his lips unconsciously as he watches Andrew’s fingers probe into his own cunt.

He doesn’t look like he’s imagining his dick doing that—he’s just looking, like this would be enough. It makes Andrew wonder how long exactly he could string this out, how long before Neil’s patience with Andrew snaps. Andrew is just gone enough to admit that the possibility of Neil’s control breaking scares him, but it also turns him on. Neil is strong, but all strength has its limits. If he can map the edges of Neil’s, perhaps he will truly be safe.

Perhaps.

“Do you want this to be your cock?” Andrew drawls, partly to distract himself.

Neil swallows. He doesn’t look like the idea had occurred to him. He gives Andrew a desperate look, like he knows there’s a right answer and he can’t figure it out and he needs help—

Andrew has to shake off his own frustration. This is how Neil is. He promised to accept that, a long time back. “Want me to fuck you now?” he asks instead, and this time he lets his voice soften as much as possible.

It’s still harsh. Whatever—Neil’s okay with it. More than, by the look of it.

Andrew grabs the base of Neil’s dick gently, steadying him long enough to slip the condom over him. Neil makes a grateful sound. Gasps when Andrew pumps his cock with the hand he just drew out of his own cunt.

He keeps his hand around the base of Neil’s cock, and grits out a hoarse “Good boy” as he sinks himself down on it.

It’s like having the breath punched out of him. Andrew had forgotten how intense this is, how frightening to have someone inside him, in a place where they could so easily hurt him. And Neil can do so much more damage than he probably even realises. _He’s not going to_ , Andrew tells himself firmly. He’s going to enjoy this and he’s going to be good and it’s going to be good for _both_ of them.

Neil would tell him this is unfair, that he can’t apply a different standard of sex to himself and a different one to Neil, and aside from his Rules he’s never asked anything of Neil that Neil could not or did not want to give. But Andrew wants this, and he wants it so badly he’s not sure he can explain it to anyone. He doesn’t have the words anymore. Having something—someone, inside him isn’t healing and isn’t redemption, but it _is_ an answer to a question Andrew has been asking himself for as long as he has been able to ask himself questions.

This is what he wants. This is what he’s choosing, for himself, and no one has the right to take it from him. The choice, the chance to pick, to pick Neil. Any, all of it.

Andrew drags in deep gulps of air, and it feels clean. Rocks his hips down against Neil’s cock, just to feel it shift and twitch against his walls.

He places a palm against Neil’s stomach, and the extra contact makes Neil groan, which in turn shivers up Andrew. He’s dizzy on the feedback loop of sensation bouncing between them, too out of it to be wise about anything.

It’s what he needs, though, to start actually fucking Neil, lifting off a little—not enough to let Neil slip out of his cunt, but just enough to feel the drag. Counts in his mind in German just for something to ground him; he knows Neil is getting closer by the way he’s panting, short and sharp. “You can come when you like,” Andrew says, and it’s honestly a little surprising how rough his voice is.

He grabs one of Neil’s hands from where they’re fisting the sheets, knitting their fingers together so he can squeeze Neil’s fingers. Guides Neil to touch his swollen clit, gasping at the sudden rush of sensation. He’s a lot more sensitive there these days, more than he can remember from his teenage years wanking in dirty bathrooms. Neil’s touch, after long minutes of hot pressure, is electrifying.

He comes within seconds of Neil stroking his clit, clenches down without conscious thought and whites out.

When he comes back to himself, Neil is still holding his hand, and his cock is noticeable softer. Andrew just feels blank. In a not-bad way.

“Andrew?” Neil says softly. “Can we move?”

“Yeah,” Andrew says distantly. He clambers off Neil.

“You okay?” Neil asks gently.

“Yeah,” Andrew repeats. He’s suddenly exhausted; he has no words or emotions left. He pats Neil gently on the shoulder and goes back to the couch. Neil’s headphones are still lying on the coffee table. Andrew listens to a white noise generator until he falls asleep.

:::

Andrew’s oddly snappy the next morning. He doesn’t really notice the change in his own behavior until Neil gives him a wounded look over his morning coffee and tells Andrew that he’s going to work at the Starbucks nearby. “You hate Starbucks,” Andrew throws at him, but Neil’s already on his way out of the door.

Whatever. Andrew drives himself to Bee’s house an hour early, where her husband-slash-secretary lets him in. “She’s with a patient,” Caleb says. “Can I get you something?” Andrew shakes his head, toes off his shoes, and browses Bee’s shelves until she calls him in.

“Caleb told me you’ve been here for a while,” Bee says. She’s a harsh-looking woman, steel-colored hair and severe lines. He appreciates that she does not go out of her way to soften herself.

The first few therapists Andrew went to made him feel disgusting, like his anger and bitterness and numbness were something he had to be broken out of. But Bee found ways of working with them instead, letting him cope in his own ways and teaching him new ones. She understands, as much as anyone can, what Andrew is. And he never has to mince words with her.

“Neil and I had sex,” he says, without preamble.

She raises an eyebrow at him. “I was under the impression you guys had been going at it for a while.”

“Real sex,” Andrew modifies. Her nose wrinkles in distaste. He knew she wasn’t going to like it.

“Penetrative sex, you mean.”

“He fucked me,” Andrew adds, just in case there’s any doubt about that.

“Who asked for it?”

Andrew gives her teeth. “I did.”

From there on, his interrogation proceeds apace.

:::

When he comes back, there’s a box of donuts on the table and Neil is asleep on the couch, splayed out in sunlight like a cat. The donuts are jam-filled. The light on Neil is captivatingly dramatic. Andrew snaps a few photos with his phone.

Neil wakes up around six, groggy and irritable. Andrew hands him the box of donuts. “Oh,” Neil says gratefully. He scarfs down the last two, and Andrew just—watches him. Waits.

He waits until Neil trashes the box before he says, “We should talk.”

Neil frowns at him. “That’s ominous.”

“Did you enjoy it?” Andrew asks. There’s no right way to say it, so he just throws it out.

“The donuts?”

“The sex,” Andrew says impatiently.

Neil flushes and fidgets. “Yes,” he says at last, like he’s ashamed of it. Andrew doesn’t want to parse out tone and emotion and expression on top of words, though, so he doesn’t mention it.

“Good,” Andrew says. “I didn’t hate it either.”

“But did you like it?” Neil asks plaintively.

“Yes,” Andrew says. There’s no point hiding it. Neil looks very relieved.

“Then why are you so—”

“Snappy?”

“—Yeah.”

Andrew looks out of the window. There’s a crow on the telephone wires, and the sunset is invisible through city smog. “Until yesterday, the first—and last—time someone fucked me like that was Drake.” He turns back to Neil. “And then you.”

“And then me,” Neil nods. Half his face is in the shadows; Andrew couldn’t read him if he tried. “It is weird? That we did that?”

“A little,” Andrew admits. “I used to think I never would want to again.”

“But you did want it, right?”

“Only after I met you.” There is a patch of light on the floor. “Only since about two weeks back.”

Neil does not respond. Andrew keeps going.

“I thought it would fix whatever is wrong with me. I knew it wouldn’t, but I still thought that it might. I don’t want to change. And I didn’t. I’m not okay, but it feels different now.”

“Because you did something you never thought you would willingly.” Neil’s voice is gentle, thoughtful.

“Yes.” One of the cupboards is a little open. Andrew glares at it until it begins to bother him.

A brief pause, and then Neil gets up and walks over to him. There are moment in time Andrew remembers better than others, moments when the world balances on the edge of a knife—like every moment in which he has failed to predict Neil’s actions. Andrew does not know what’s going to happen until Neil drops down to sit at his feet. He looks up at Andrew with the sort of rancourless patience he’d punch off of anyone else’s face.

“I like you,” Neil begins. “And I like what we did. I want to do it again. But I like you more and I wouldn’t mind if we never did it again. But you knew this already.”

“You’re a sap,” Andrew says grumpily. “What else is new.”

Neil puts his head against Andrew’s thigh. Eventually, Andrew gives in and scritches his hair. Neil practically purrs.

Andrew waits for the last dregs on sunlight to fade out of the room before he says, “I’d like to do that again sometime too.”

**Author's Note:**

> if you like this, or have a question, or found a typo, please consider leaving a comment to tell me about it!


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